Wednesday, April 30, 2008

In this third and final installment of the "Craigslist Etiquette" interview series, Craig Newmark sets the record straight about the Craigslist Personals category...

Urban-Etiquette:Is it safe to say that basically the entire Personals section is "Not Safe for Work" (NSFW)?

Craig Newmark:That actually depends upon the section. For example, "Men Seeking Men" (m2m) often has the most complaints, whereas "Women Seeking Women" (w2w) may actually be the best self-policing section on the entire site.

Is it good etiquette to include a photo of oneself along with a personals post?Depends on the specific situation. For example, if you’re trying to connect with others based upon what you're about, maybe start with words and follow with photos later on.What about including photos of, say, other relevant body parts?Off hand, uh - I’d say it’s probably a bad idea.

Or a photo from five years ago?Or ten?! This also goes back to the Golden Rule: treat people like you want to be treated, remembering that different people have different sensitivities and ideas about what’s okay.

Are inappropriate photos flagged the most?There are actually bigger problems than photos that are not safe for work and users consistently tell us to prioritize.

Especially because some of the ugliest things I’ve seen were actually over in the discussion forums. People sometimes get a little nasty with each other, which bothers me more.

So we have a, uh, *ahem* friend who wanted to, er - that is - this friend of ours wanted us to ask: There's a section for “Jobs” and a section for “Casual Encounters,” but what if I wanted to get a job...IN casual encounters?Well if it's a job doing that, then it sounds illegal and we definitely don’t want it on the site!